{"id":549176,"date":"2026-04-10T02:06:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T02:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/549176\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T02:06:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T02:06:30","slug":"matthew-schaefer-matches-record-for-goals-by-rookie-defenseman-as-islanders-top-leafs-5-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/549176\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Schaefer matches record for goals by rookie defenseman as Islanders top Leafs 5-3"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — – Matthew Schaefer<\/a> tied the NHL record<\/a> for goals by a rookie defenseman, and the Islanders defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> 5-3 on Thursday night in Peter DeBoer’s<\/a> first game as New York’s coach.<\/p>\n

Cal Ritchie had a goal and an assist, and Ilya Sorokin<\/a> finished with 13 saves as the Islanders snapped a four-game skid. Brayden Schenn<\/a>, Jean-Gabriel Pageau<\/a> and Emil Heineman<\/a> also scored, and Tony DeAngelo<\/a> added two assists.<\/p>\n

DeBoer was hired Sunday after the Islanders fired Patrick Roy<\/a> amid a late-season slide that saw the team lose seven of 10 games. New York remains in contention for a wild-card playoff spot, trailing Ottawa by three points with three games left.<\/p>\n

Steven Lorentz<\/a>, Easton Cowan<\/a> and Morgan Rielly<\/a> scored for Toronto. Artur Akhtyamov<\/a> made 39 saves for the Maple Leafs, who lost their fifth straight.<\/p>\n

Schaefer’s goal midway through the second period was his 23rd of the season to match Hall of Famer Brian Leetch’s record for a rookie defender, set in 1988-89 for the New York Rangers<\/a>. His shot through Akhtyamov’s legs put the Islanders ahead 3-2.<\/p>\n

Heineman scored late in the second for a two-goal advantage, and Ritchie added a power-play goal midway through the third period to put the game out of reach.<\/p>\n

New York scored twice in the first five minutes to open the DeBoer era.<\/p>\n

Schenn opened the scoring at 2:08 of the first period, finishing a feed from Ritchie on a delayed penalty. Pageau added a goal later in the period, depositing his own rebound to extend the Islanders’ lead to 2-0.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Maple Leafs: Host Florida on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Islanders: Host Ottawa on Saturday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — – Matthew Schaefer tied the NHL record for goals by a rookie defenseman, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5106],"tags":[62391,266,5,20,5172,159,4,66,31,5171],"class_list":{"0":"post-549176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-maple-leafs","8":"tag-62391","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-maple-leafs","12":"tag-mapleleafs","13":"tag-new-york-islanders","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-toronto","16":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","17":"tag-torontomapleleafs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116377970513830777","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}